Japan issues tsunami warning after major earthquake
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Japan issued a tsunami warning for hundreds of kilometres of its north-eastern coastline on Monday after a major earthquake struck the Aomori and Iwate prefectures.
The quake, which was logged by the Japan Meteorological Agency with a preliminary magnitude of 7.4, struck at 4.53pm local time.
There have so far been no reports of injuries or other damage from the earthquakewhich was powerful enough to rattle buildings roughly 850km south in Tokyo.
Tsunami waves as high as three metres are expected to arrive in parts of the affected area over the coming hour, according to a warning broadcast on Japan’s NHK.
Within one hour of the initial tremor, whose centre was beneath the sea to the east of Iwate prefecture, television footage showed large waves crashing on to sea defences but not overwhelming them. By 6pm, the largest wave to hit the coastline was measured at 80cm.
Residents of the regions under the tsunami alert were told to immediately evacuate to higher ground.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi wrote on X that the government had set up a contact room in the administration’s crisis management centre to receive and give information. Takaichi had made disaster preparedness for Japan, which is vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons, a major part of her February election campaign.
Footage of a port in Hiroo in Hokkaido showed dozens of vessels leaving at high speed and making for open waters, where they should be safer from an incoming tsunami.
In the 2011 Tohoku quake, a tsunami destroyed thousands of fishing boats and other vessels.
On the coastal areas expected to be hit by tsunami waves are the Onagawa and Higashidori nuclear power plants, the latter of which has been suspended since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, as well as the Rokkasho nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.
More than a dozen train lines in northern Japan have temporarily suspended operations because of the earthquake, according to JR East, the railway operator.
